


know him in death (at the end of the world)

by cosmicwritings



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Song of Achilles Fusion, Alternate Universe - Trojan War Setting (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inspired by The Song of Achilles, Joseph Kavinsky is His Own Warning, M/M, pynch as patrochilles? iconic of me, this is a PAINFUL fic i am warning you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-26 00:10:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19756585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicwritings/pseuds/cosmicwritings
Summary: 'Ronan fights like he has everything to lose, like he has nothing to lose. He fights like he was born to do nothing else (Adam doesn't believe that; Adam has been loved by Ronan Lynch and he can tell you that Ronan was born for much softer things). Ronan Lynch, half-God half-human, fighter of men. Adam is so in love with him, it hurts sometimes.'or, the song of achilles pynch au.





	know him in death (at the end of the world)

**Author's Note:**

> ho ho HO icb i really finished this bc i've been writing it for the better part of a year on and off. anyways this is obviously based on the song of achilles by madeline miller and patroclus x achilles as a Ship but i've taken the liberty of twisting bits of each character to fit pynch better. y'all should know that i cried several times whilst writing this, i made my own heart hurt so much fjkdgdffdg 
> 
> there's also. uh. the world's worst Almost smut scene fdjghdfkjgh it's incredibly vague bc i'm lame and have never written a smut scene before this. did i project my own neck fetish into this? yes. 
> 
> title is from the song of achilles by madeline miller !! there are direct quotes in here from the book but you could probably read this without reading the book itself even tho i highly recommend doing so bc it WILL ruin ur life

Adam kills a boy by accident when he is eight and his father beats him first, then exiles him from the land.

_ This is not the beginning of a sob story _ , Adam decides. It is muscle memory, the way he curls in on himself when his father strikes. 

_ I have always been alone _ , Adam thinks on the journey to another kingdom. The King of Phthia will take him in. He will no longer be a prince, not of the small kingdom his tyrannical father and simple mother owns, not of anywhere. But he will live. That is enough.

"You will be safe here," the King of Phthia says when Adam kneels in front of him. And then he's dismissed quickly, another one of the boys that are in the palace. 

* * *

Ronan Lynch is the Prince of Phthia, and the first time Adam sees him, he has to pause. 

Ronan is made of hard muscles, beautiful sharp lines, an ease to the way he moves. 

Adam cannot stop looking.

At first, he thinks the feeling is envy. But then his fingers twitch and the nerves in his body are singing to  _ touch touch touch.  _

Adam cannot touch.

Instead, he watches Ronan from afar, on the outskirts of all the other boys that clamour to get his attention. Adam's always been good at that, fading into the background, letting people's eyes skip over him. It's a survival instinct, but it also allows him to be  _ safe _ . If his father forgot he was there, all the better, really. Old habits die hard. 

Sometimes, Adam thinks he catches Ronan looking back at him --- across the dinner table, when he passes him in corridors, at the back of the group when they scramble to play a game. Sometimes, Adam thinks Ronan is looking at him, but he shakes his head. Ronan is a prince here; more than that, Ronan is like a God here, with his sharp lines that glint in the sunlight, with the lightness of his feet. Adam is an exile. Adam killed a boy.

Adam has to remind himself to keep looking away.  
  


* * *

Peaceful sleep is a luxury that Adam doesn't think he's ever had. It's worse these days, when nightmares of a dead boy and lifeless eyes plague him. In his defence, he has always powered through with little sleep, because he is nothing if not a proud boy, if not a force to be reckoned with.

But today he is tired. Today, he wants to crawl into himself and never move. 

"I thought I'd find you here," a voice says, and Adam jerks automatically, rabbit heart caught in his throat. He's tucked inside a store cupboard, knees to his chest, forehead resting on his knees. 

The door is ajar, Ronan standing under the candle lamp on the wall. For a minute, Adam blinks. Up close, Ronan's face is serious. His mouth is pressed into a flat line, eyebrows furrowed. Adam holds eye contact, even if he feels guilty for disappearing for the day and hiding where he shouldn't be.

"I have been looking for you. You weren't at morning drills today."

An unexpected rush of anger floods into Adam's head, pointedly aggressive. "How would you know? You don't train with us."

"The master noticed and told my father."

"And he sent you," and the tone of Adam's is derisive.

"No, I came on my own," Ronan says coolly, but there's a quirk in an eyebrow like he's amused. 

"Why?"

"I thought you were ill," he replies casually, like it doesn't matter. He peers at Adam's face. "You are not ill."

"No."

"My father wants to punish you. But if you're not ill, that cannot be your excuse." Adam does not say anything, and Ronan presses on. "What will you say?"

The anger hits Adam again full force and he bites back, "I don't know. You're the prince. Say I was with you."

"What?" Ronan says, surprised. 

"Say I was with you. He won't punish me if you say that."

There's a moment of silence, long enough that Adam starts to almost regret his burst of anger. Why would Ronan help him? Who was he to demand such things?

"Come on then," Ronan says abruptly, stepping away from the door. Adam scrambles upright to step out of the cupboard. 

"Go where?"

"You're coming with me," Ronan says like it's obvious, leading their way out. "I don't lie. So you're coming with me, and then I can tell my father you were with me."

"You don't lie? Ever?"

"No." Ronan bites at a leather strap that's around his wrist. Adam doesn't push it.

Ronan takes him to his music lesson, where he plays the lyre. The teaching instructor, who looks at Adam as scornfully as Adam looks at himself on bad days, offers a lyre to Adam with barely concealed contempt, but he shakes his head, afraid to touch something so beautiful. He is content like this, watching Ronan play the instrument like second nature, with no effort at all. As the hour flits by, he hardly notices, entranced by the way Ronan moves his fingers, the calmness on his face, like a sailor captured by a siren.

"You play well," Adam says when Ronan starts packing away the lyre.

Ronan does not answer, although the tips of his ears go red in a terribly youthful, boy-ish way that makes Adam almost smile. "We will go to my father now."

Adam watches Ronan carefully as he follows him to his father's wing. His eyes trace over the way Ronan walks with ease, the closely cropped hair, the strong nose, the muscles on his biceps. The tips of his ears are still a faint pink and Adam is still thinking of that when they both enter the King's room, both kneel in front of him, letting Ronan speak.

"I forgot to mention that I want him as my companion."

Niall Lynch's face betrays his surprise, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly open. Adam does not see because he is busy staring at Ronan himself.

"You've never chosen a companion before, despite my wishes over the years. Why this boy?"

There's a pause. Ronan looks like he is thinking hard of what to say.  _ He never lies, _ Adam thinks. "He is surprising."

"Surprising," Niall echoes, but Ronan does not elaborate. "He is an exile. He has killed a boy." If Ronan is shocked, he does not show it. "He will not do anything for your reputation and the other boys will be angry."

"Let them be angry," Ronan replies, and there's a sneer to his voice. He raises his chin higher. "I do not care."

Niall turns his gaze to Adam, who does his best to look back. Finally, he sighs. "Very well."  
  


* * *

"You're going to sleep in my room tonight," Ronan says to him over dinner, and the other boys that hear blink. He is looking at Adam across the table.

"All right," Adam says, as if it's perfectly normal. 

Sure enough, when he follows Ronan to his room later, his things have already been moved there and there is a pallet newly set up on the other side of the room. Ronan goes to sit on his bed and, for lack of anything better to do, Adam does the same. He lies down on his side, ear pressed to the pillow, and closes his eyes.

He opens them again when something bounces off his forehead. His hands fumble around as he sits up quickly, and picks up the ball that had been thrown his way with a frown.

"I thought you were sleeping," Ronan explains. "I called your name and you did not answer me."

"I didn't hear you. I'm deaf in this ear." Adam is still learning that there is nothing to be ashamed about it. He tries his best to make the words sound casual. 

"Oh," Ronan says, surprised. And then, "I'm sorry."

Adam shakes his head. "No, it's all right. Why were you calling my name?"

"It wasn't important." Adam thinks if Ronan was the type of person to look embarrassed, he would now. Instead, he only ducks his head a little. "I wanted to ask if you wanted to play."

"Play?"

Ronan nods towards the ball he'd thrown his way, and Adam pauses, before throwing it back. It's a clumsy throw. For a moment, the ball is going too far to the right, but then Ronan's hand leans out and snatches it from thin air. 

It goes like this for a while, throwing the ball back and forth, until Ronan yawns.

"Are you tired?" Adam asks.

Ronan shrugs. "Are you?"

Adam nods, and Ronan puts the ball away and lies down on his bed. Doing the same, Adam shifts as quietly as he can so he can turn his head to look at Ronan. The other boy is staring up at the ceiling, Adam can see every eyelash outlined in the darkness.

"I thought you were tired," Ronan says, eyes still ahead. 

Adam flinches automatically and hastily looks away. "I am. Aren't you?"

"I don't sleep very well," Ronan explains, and then they don't speak for the rest of the night.

* * *

Life is different after Ronan's claimed him as a companion. Adam stops expecting to be sent away, to return to his old bed with the other boys and his old training drills. Mostly, he just follows Ronan's princely activities throughout the day.

The only place he isn't allowed to follow Ronan to is when he practices his fighting. Ronan has private drills away from the other boys, who are being trained as soldiers for the kingdom's army. 

"Why do you train alone?" Adam asks once, before he leaves to read as Ronan trains.

Ronan bites the leather wristbands on his wrist. "My mother asks me to."

For a moment, the words register in Adam's head, but it doesn't make any sense. Only then does he remember that Ronan's mother was a goddess; a minor god, but a god nonetheless. Aurora (Eos), the goddess of dawn. Sometimes, Ronan is so painfully human that it's impossible to remember that he's half-god, but other times, Ronan seems so otherworldly that he can't have anything other than divine blood running through him. 

Ronan Lynch is a walking contradiction and Adam spends a lot of time studying him.

"Would you want to come watch me fight today?" Ronan says one day. Adam had already turned away, but he stops. When he looks back around, Ronan is chewing on his wristbands again, and if Adam didn't know any better, he'd say he was nervous.

Adam nods, and Ronan releases a breath. When Ronan picks up a spear, Adam moves to do the same, but Ronan shakes his head.

"I do not fight with others," he says.

"Never?"

"No."

"Who trains you?"

"No one. I trained myself."

But Adam watches him fight by himself for merely five minutes, and he couldn't even tell. Ronan moves with finesse, in a way that Adam wants to describe as beautiful, but knows it's a strange adjective to describe something so violent. Experienced, with force that could move the air, reflexes like he doesn't even need to think. Ronan's muscles flex, and Adam finds it hard to breathe watching him.

When Ronan stops, Adam makes a move forwards. "Fight me."

Ronan's eyes wrinkle as he lets out a chuckle. "No."

"Fight me," Adam says with more conviction, but Ronan shakes his head and lays his spear on the ground. "I dare you."

Ronan is no longer smiling as he steps away from his weapons on the ground. "I said no. Don't ask me again."

"I will ask again, you cannot forbid me," Adam says, and he doesn't know where the rising emotion in him has come from until it's being spilled out now. He could feel it burning red inside him, gnawing at his core, and he takes another step forward. "Fight me."

Ronan turns away, still shaking his head. He begins to walk away. "I'm not going to fight you."

Adam knows the only reason he manages to make Ronan stumble is because his back is turned and he attacks from behind --- someone who fights as well as Ronan would not be thrown so easily by him. But Adam has never really attacked others, from behind or otherwise, and he's surprised by the air that pushes his way out of his lungs as they both fall forward. Before he can find his breath, Ronan's arms have darted out from beneath them to clutch at his wrists and he rolls them over.

"Let go of me," Adam says, struggling, still dazed from falling. The burning in his core has died down. 

Ronan's hands release his, but he's still straddling Adam, knees digging into the dirt. Adam stops struggling. There's a silence. Ronan is looking at Adam in a way he has never been looked at, and he doesn't know what to do with this information.

"I've never seen anyone fight like you," Adam says finally. 

Ronan is still looking at him.

"There's no one like you," Adam adds. The words rush out of him before he can stop it.

Ronan leans back and grins, savage and knife-like and boyish, but it lights something up in Adam. The feeling is warm and replaces any burning inside of him.

* * *

He still has nightmares sometimes. The dead boy in his dreams, blood leaking from a head wound, dark red against the brown earth. Adam hadn't meant to push that hard, see, the boy had hit him and reflexively Adam had curled in. And then he pushed. And then the boy fell.

He draws a sharp breath as he's awoken from the nightmare again, arms shaking. He always tries to remain quiet, so as to not wake Ronan, but Ronan was right the first night -- he hardly ever sleeps. (  _ Ronan doesn't lie _ . )

Adam pushes himself into a sitting position in his bed, reaching for a glass of water by his bed. He can feel Ronan's eyes at him in the darkness.

“You can ask me,” Adam says, because Ronan is always looking and won’t say unless prompted. The words sound casual, but they’re so heavy.

“How did you kill the boy?”

Adam does not let himself flinch. 

"He was attacking me, I had a toy he wanted. I pushed him and he fell, his head hit the rocks."

Ronan nods, but Adam can't bring himself to look his way. "I am sorry."

"For what?"

"That it happened." He hears Ronan shift. "I've never had someone take something from me."

"Never?" 

"No. I don't know what I would've done. I think I'd be angry."  
  


* * *

"My parents want me to be a god," Ronan says one day, when the two of them are lying in the grass.

This does not surprise Adam. Every day, he finds himself thinking how much of a god Ronan is becoming as they age. "Do you want to be?"

Ronan blinks. "No one's asked me that before." He stares into space for a while, thoughtfully. "I don't know."

And the days bleed into weeks bleed into months bleed years. Adam had always been taller than most boys, but his father's kingdom was at best poor, so the days he went hungry hollowed out his body, in a way he'd never truly regained. Ronan had been shorter than him when he had first arrived, but as puberty crept up on both of them, Ronan grew with Adam and then surpassed him. 

With puberty came the boys in the palace's growing interest in women, too. Serving women were regularly being taken away by the other boys into their beds, and it wasn't difficult to notice the way many of the girls looked at Ronan. But to Adam's knowledge, Ronan had shown no interest in any of them, only as distant and roughly quiet to them as he was to everyone else.

A girl from the kitchens seeks Adam out sometimes, for a chat. She's quiet and seems enchanted by the strange, beautiful bones on Adam's face, but Adam kisses her once and does not feel a thing, so he respectfully steps away and apologises.

When Adam mentions it to Ronan that night, lying in their respective beds, Ronan is silent. 

"Do you like the girl?" Ronan finally says.

"I don't think so." Adam tries to think about the girl's hair falling in her face, her hands holding his. "Do you?"

Ronan snorts. "No."

"Are there any girls you like? Because they talk about you in the kitchens ---"

Adam stops with a sharp intake of breath, because Ronan is suddenly leaning over him, movement silent. It had been so quick and quiet that, one moment he'd been on his own bed, the next he was inches away from Adam's face.

"I don't want to talk about all those girls," Ronan says, and then he's abruptly by his own bed again, pouring a glass of water. If it hadn't been for the slight shake of his hands on the water jug, Adam would've been convinced he dreamt the entire thing.

( Adam  _ does  _ dream that night, but for once it is not about the dead boy or blood in the dirt. He dreams of hands, of long limbs and a strong jaw, and he wakes up feeling bare. )

* * *

Their first kiss feels like an accident.

They are sitting side-by-side on Ronan's bed, not touching and absentmindedly passing a ball between their hands. 

When Adam is handed the ball, Ronan stares at the ball in Adam's hand for a long moment, eyes running over each knuckle and bone, before pressing his own hands against it and surging forward to bump his mouth against his. 

Mostly, Adam is caught by surprise -- not by the lack of sound, because Ronan makes a point to sit on his hearing side all the time. No, he didn't think Ronan would see him like this, and does not register the kiss until Ronan has pulled back, eyes closed. There's a crease in Ronan's brow when he begins to open his eyes, and Adam leans forward quickly to kiss him again, this time opening his mouth up clumsily. Up close, he can see every speck in Ronan's blue eyes and closes his own.

Ronan's hand slides up his cheek, and it stirs something in Adam --- so much so that he flinches away violently. The enormity of his desire suddenly overwhelms him, but before he can address it, there's a cough at the door and the two boys move further apart from one another.

"Ronan, your mother is by the cliff, wishing to see you," comes a voice, and to Adam's horror, he looks up to see Niall Lynch standing at the door of their room. Ronan stands and Adam can only see the back of his head as he walks out, neck bright red.

Adam doesn't know where to look once Ronan has left, and he settles for gazing at his hands. 

"He's going to be a god," Ronan's father says, and Adam is startled that he spoke. "It's in a prophecy. He's going to be a god."

Adam does not know what to say, nor whether he is allowed to say anything.

"He'll be leaving. Chiron is to teach him and prepare him for the prophecy, it's a place for demigods."

_ Not for you,  _ is unspoken, but Adam hears it clear as day, and does not look up even once Niall has left the room.

* * *

Once Ronan has left the palace, Adam spends the following morning walking around the grounds, hoping to find some sort of peace to subdue the restlessness in his bones. When Ronan was busy and Adam did not accompany him, he'd usually return to their room to read until Ronan found him again, but Adam had woken up that morning and couldn't bear to face the emptiness of Ronan's bed.

No one had called him to continue the old training he had to do before he was Ronan's companion, with the other boys, so he tries to soak up the sun to replace the cold feeling settling in him.

_ I could leave,  _ he thinks, as he's standing in the front courtyard. He looks around and it's empty, clear of even the servants. He could just go. What's stopping him? He had nothing to take with him, nothing that was his to own. 

His left leg steps out, as if possessed by something else. Then, he takes another step. With a deep breath, he surges forward and runs, runs away from the palace, runs in a way he's never done before.

Hours pass, and his legs ache, his forehead sweaty from the sun, but there's something freeing about the steady pace he has maintained. About not knowing where he's going. He's just following the path, stopping by lakes and ponds when he felt dehydrated. All he can think of is leaving.

He's resting against a tree, breathing heavily, when he hears the sound. The slightest rustle, but Adam's trained himself to listen for danger since he was old enough to feel his father's sudden fists against his skin, even with his hearing imbalance. He tries to hold his breath as he strains to listen more clearly, but then he's getting knocked forward to the ground. Instinctively, he moves his face to cover it. 

" _ Parrish?" _ a voice says above him, unbelieving. "Adam?"  _ I know that voice. _

"Ronan?" 

Hands flip him around so that he's lying on his back instead and --- yes, that's Ronan, all right. 

"Why the fuck did you knock me on my ass?"

Ronan opens his mouth, but is cut off by another voice. "Is the boy hurt?"

Scrambling to get up, Adam shakes his head and looks behind Ronan to see Chiron standing there, with all the half-horse half-human glory myths told. "No, I'm all right."

"I'm assuming this is why you have yet to join me on the mountain, Ronan," Chiron says, and Adam is surprised to see Ronan shift, embarrassed. The tips of his ears red, spreading colour to the back of his neck, Ronan chews on his leather bands, and Adam  _ knows  _ him, he knows him. It makes sense suddenly, that he was stopped here, because Ronan had waited for Adam to find him.

That seemed like the most important detail to note.

* * *

Living with Chiron and Ronan was different to the palace, but also not. Even back then, Adam had spent most of his time with Ronan, and that had not changed here. Chiron taught them fighting,  _ both  _ of them --- Adam was trained to be a warrior, another soldier for war, but Ronan was given special training exercises when he quickly surpassed the standard fighting. Under Chiron's guidance, Adam found more interest in learning the skill of medicine, the different ways of healing. He was good with his hands, he always had been, and Chiron had centuries of experience to hand down to him. 

"He is the best fighter I've ever seen," Adam says to Chiron once, as they watch Ronan spar with the air.

Chiron gazes ahead, and Ronan comes to a halt. "He is. When men will ask you to fight their wars, will you answer?" The question is directed at Ronan, who ducks his head -- a ridiculous gesture for a boy who had long since cleared six feet. He bites at his wristbands.

"I don't know."

"That's an acceptable answer for now. Not for later," Chiron says, and Adam shivers.

The months turn into years before them, and it's strange to think that Adam had once seen Ronan when he was young and small ( but sharp, still sharp ) . Training every day had broadened Ronan's shoulders even more, muscles growing from usage, face widening to show a jawline that was fit for a man. The six foot four stature was enough for Adam's inch over six foot to look up at, just slightly. It was hard not to stare sometimes. 

"You look older," Adam tells him, sitting against a tree whilst Ronan climbs it. 

Ronan looks down, surprised. "Do I?"

Adam nods, and Ronan jumps down to land in front of him. 

"You do too," Ronan says. He reaches out a hand to run gently along the lines of Adam's cheekbones jutting out. "Your face is different, here." A finger leads a trail down to Adam's collarbones, settling lightly against the skin. "And here. Makes you look sharper, older." His hand keeps moving, down one of Adam's arms until he's uncurled Adam's palm to open up. Traces the lines of his palm, and then turns it over to study the bones. Adam feels himself blush, hates himself for it, just a little.

When they return back to Chiron's cave, there's a letter waiting for Ronan.

"My father requested for you to be sent back," Ronan tells Adam, who's climbing into their bed. Chiron had not been prepared for Adam to join, but the two boys hadn't found a problem lying side-by-side in one bed.

"Will you?" Adam stops shuffling, and goes still under the covers. "Do you want me to go back?"

"No." A pause. "He cannot see us here, you know."

Adam does not know what he is supposed to say, so he just agrees. "He cannot see us here. Do you --- are you happy with that?"

There's movement from Ronan as he slides into the bed too, on the edge as Adam likes to sleep with his back against the wall. "Yes."

Adam feels his eyes close, heart beating in the darkness. Sometimes they stay awake to talk, but the air feels fragile, tentative before them. It's almost suffocating Adam, but in a good way, he thinks. In a good way.

He opens his eyes. Ronan's head turned to the side to stare at him, eyes tracking Adam's face.

The world moves, and lips touch lips. 

This kiss is nothing like the first, nothing like the accidental bump of two boys who fell in love with their best friend. Except --- except it's exactly that, isn't it? Ronan shifts slightly, bringing a shaky hand to rest on the dip of Adam's waist, but it's Adam who leans forward even more to deepen the kiss. His mouth opens and Ronan's tongue slips against his, hesitantly, greedily. For a moment, that's Adam's entire world: the weight of Ronan's hands on his skin, the feel of his tongue and lips. He tastes of the berries they ate earlier, breath warm with sweetness as he pulls back and dips his head down, moving against Adam's jaw and neck.

Adam lets out a sigh as Ronan's mouth makes work of his neck, the slightest scrape of teeth against his throat. Ronan sucks, and Adam gasps, pulling him back up to kiss him again. 

With a sudden boldness, Adam pushes himself onto his elbow to give him the momentum to roll Ronan until he's completely on his back. Ronan's dark blue eyes are like a beacon of light in the dark, and he's looking up at Adam like he's the stars, like Adam has the whole universe and could give it to him if he begged hard enough. 

Adam doesn't understand, not really. Ronan is part-God in a human body, is going to go down in history, but right now he looks like he'd give that all up for Adam.

Desire hits Adam like a lightning bolt, and he surges downwards to crush their lips together. Ronan's muscles tense underneath him and the slight movement is enough for Adam to instinctively grind his hardness into Ronan's thigh. Ronan makes a noise at the back of his throat, but Adam feels the rumble and tastes the sound more than hears it, grins against his lips and does it again.

He begins to trail his lips down the side of Ronan's jaw, along his throat, teeth scraping. Ronan's hands tangles itself into Adam's hair, fingernails rubbing against his skull, and Adam bites down harder into Ronan's neck. One of Adam's hands trace Ronan's biceps, across his chest, down the hard planes of his stomach and abs, before pausing as it reaches his hips. Pulling off his neck with a slick sound, Adam glances at Ronan for permission, but Ronan's eyes are closed, jaw slack already, and he looks like he's praying.

Adam's hand moves further down. Ronan swears violently, and the sound makes Adam grin.

"I'm not going to last," Ronan breathes out, grabbing Adam's other hand and pressing it to his lips. Adam twists his wrist, inciting another string of swear words from Ronan's mouth, as if to say,  _ Yeah, that's the point.  _ "No, I'm going to --- Not yet, hold on." With a lot of effort and what Ronan would control impeccable self-control, the taller boy moves so that Adam's hand falls away and switches their position so it's Adam with his back flat on the bed.

Adam's about to ask what he's doing, but then Ronan licks his lips and dips his head and ---  _ Oh _ . Okay.

When Adam feels something tighten in his lower stomach, he taps on Ronan's shoulder to warn him, but Ronan hollows his cheeks, enough so Adam can see his jawline sharpen and eyelashes flutter, and that's all it takes, really.

As soon as he catches his breath, Adam presses his lips against his, a beautiful blend of bruising and tenderness that has Ronan rolling onto his side. He pulls back, tilting his head to about to return the favour, but one of Ronan's hands catch him by the chin, shaking his head.

"Your hands," Ronan rasps, hoarse, and Adam can't believe he's seen almost every version of Ronan except wrecked, until now. "Your hands. Please." And then he leans up to kiss Adam again, letting Adam's hand leave a path of heat down his body.

Ronan releases a soft groan as he climaxes, and Adam thinks it's the most beautiful sound he's ever heard.

* * *

When the call comes for war, there's a furrow in Ronan's brow, but Chiron looks at him, Adam looks at him, everyone is going to be looking at him.

Ronan Lynch is seventeen years old and the best fighter in history. Chiron was right: he has to decide.

He goes to war, and Adam follows him.

( He always will. )

Niall Lynch is ridiculously proud, but Adam has seen a lot of suffering in his life and he does not want to see any more --- he does not want Ronan, who is wonderful and has a tremendously bad attitude and  _ sheltered _ , to see this side of the world. He does not want Ronan, who cradles mice when he takes them out of the cave, to have to do this and kill people.

It seems Aurora, Ronan's mother, agrees with Adam because she visits when they stop off at the palace to prepare for the war Ronan is about to lead. 

"Ronan, my love, you can't go," Aurora says, pressing a hand to Ronan's cheek. The simple action softens Ronan, making him lean into the soft skin. Adam was invited for this meeting, Aurora had never minded him, but he feels he's intruding anyway.

Ronan's eyes close and open, a flutter of dark eyelashes that Adam has spent a long time admiring. His mouth presses into a thin line, and he whispers, "I have to."

"You brave, brave boy." Adam thinks a tear glistens in the corner of the goddess' eye, and he looks away. "You haven't heard the prophecy."

Ronan's head jerks up, the same way Adam turns his working ear towards them to hear better. They know the prophecy, don't they? Ronan told him for the first time, back when they were young boys playing in fields, not thinking about an upcoming war.

"The full prophecy," corrects Aurora, and she clutches at Ronan's face. "If you go to this war, you will not come back."

The blood in Adam's veins run very, very cold suddenly. He does not breathe.

Ronan's breath stops, stutters as well. He turns to meet Adam's eyes, different shades of blue clashing desperately.

" _ Ronan _ ," Adam chokes out.  _ Don't go, _ he is trying to say, but the words are not coming out and Ronan knows, he does, he knows what he means.

No war is worth the cost of Ronan Lynch. That's something Adam will say with confidence.

Ronan looks to the floor, not meeting his mother or Adam's eyes. "I have to."

Adam isn't quite sure he will ever breathe again. What is he supposed to do, knowing Ronan is supposed to die? Fuck the fates. Fuck it all.

Aurora does not look surprised by the reply, but she closes her eyes in sorrow for a moment anyway. 

"What more of the prophecy?"

She opens her eyes. "Kavinsky's death will be first."

"Kavinsky?" 

"He's the best fighter for the Romans," she says. "He is the best fighter."

_ Apart from Ronan _ , they all think. 

Suddenly, Adam is able to breathe a little again. Oxygen fights its way into his body. Kavinsky's death will be first. He is the best fighter. No one will be able to defeat him, apart from Ronan, then.

"You can't kill him," Adam says.

Ronan grins, all teeth. Feral. Sharp. "What has Kavinsky ever done to me?"

* * *

Adam kisses him hard that night, trying to bleed all his worry and anger and pain out. With Ronan opening up his mouth to him, letting his tongue slip against his, Adam cannot believe there will ever be a time where Ronan is not as alive as he is in this moment.

He pushes Ronan onto his back, meeting Ronan's eyes as they darken with want. They have grown up together since they were young, and it had not taken long for the both of them to learn each other's bodies, learn each other's desires and their preferences.

As Ronan opens his legs for him reflexively, Adam leans back a little, to look at the boy in front of him. Has to stop his hands from shaking as he reaches for Ronan's face.

"I love you," Adam says, and they are both mirrors of each other's surprise. He hadn't meant to say it, but now that he had, there was no denying the truth. He loves Ronan Lynch. He has loved Ronan Lynch for a long time, he thinks.

Adam has never said those three words before. 

Ronan's lips curve into a soft smile, and it is moments like this that makes Adam think how he could ever have called Ronan sharp or savage or anything other than gentle. "I love you."

Adam has never had those three words said to him before, either.

Anything else to say gets tangled in his mind, lost in translation as he opens his mouth to say something, so he leans forward to kiss him deeply, trying to push everything he wants to say this way.

Ronan murmurs, "I love you," again, into his mouth this time, and Adam tastes the words, weighs it on his tongue. Thinks he could grow used to that. 

Later that night, when Ronan sleeps soundly beside him, Adam takes the opportunity to stare at his sleeping features. He doesn't get to do this often. Ronan's struggle with sleep is better than it once was, but he still sleeps lightly and takes a long time until he is able to drift. 

Adam looks at the long eyelashes, the strong nose, the softened mouth now that it's not pressed in a grimace like it usually is when Ronan's awake. And all he can think is:  _ how long does he have? How long do we have? _  
  


* * *

Adam has a secret.

It's a silly one, in the grand scheme of things. Hardly a secret at all. Adam had always known he was just plain Adam -- a passable soldier, a good healer, the companion of Ronan until he was something more. There was no blood from the gods running through his veins, the way it ran through Ronan's. He was no demigod, and he was not magical.

But sometimes, just sometimes, Adam's instincts and gut feeling had him predicting the weather.

The night before they're supposed to leave for Troy, Adam wakes up in the middle of his sleep. The slightest movement of startling awake has Ronan stirring next to him, his arm tightening his hold around Adam.

"What's wrong?" Ronan says, voice laced with sleep. He brings a hand up to sooth the crease in Adam's brow. 

Adam doesn't know how to explain himself, so he just says, "There's not going to be any wind."

"What?"

"Without wind, we cannot sail tomorrow. There's no wind." 

Adam is right.

Days pass with the sun beating down, the air humid and sticky. But no wind. When it has been a week and the army gets restless, Adam tells Ronan to go speak to his mother. He shakes his head on his return. "It's the gods. They are not happy."

In the end, it is agreed upon that a sacrifice needs to be made to the gods. Ronan puts himself in charge of gathering cattle and sheep the same day. 

The next day, Colin Greenmantle has written to his wife to send his daughter to him. With the army as his witness, he slaughters her on an altar and the blood runs, bleeding into the dirt beneath Adam's shoes.

"This was for you," Greenmantle hisses at Richard Gansey as he lowers the knife. Gansey's hands are shaking. So are Ronan's, but Adam knows they would. 

A horrible part of Adam thinks what Greenmantle has a point. It was Gansey's sister that was kidnapped by Paris of Troy. It was Helen's face that launched a thousand ships in her honour. Ronan's fighting ability may be leading them in war, but it was Gansey's honour that was at stake.

Ronan is still staring at the girl on the altar, at the blood from her slit neck. Red virgin blood against the white altar. Adam tugs at Ronan's hand to lead him away, feeling his stomach turn.

But Adam knows it has worked, that the gods have been appeased. The wind howls, but he feels it before he hears it.  
  


* * *

The ships set sail for Troy, and Adam finds Ronan sitting on the bed in their room, staring at his hands. There are the smallest splatters of blood, tainted from standing too close to the poor girl when she was sacrificed.

Adam is trying to figure out what words would be of comfort when Ronan asks, "What was it like? When you killed that boy all those years ago?"

The question catches Adam off guard. Of all the time they have spent together, Ronan has never asked what it had felt like. Fighting against the nausea that still fills him when he thinks about it, he tries to imagine the boy on the floor again. "Quick. He was… One moment he was standing, the next he was on the floor. The blood ran too quickly."

"Did he die straight away? Or did he twitch a little, the way animals do when we shoot them?"

Adam shrugs. 

"My father said to imagine the ones I kill as animals." Ronan looks up from his hands, looks up into Adam's eyes. Adds simply, "I don't think I can."

Adam moves closer to cover Ronan's hands with his own. As he thought, Ronan's hands tighten his hold, stroking the bones of Adam's hands. "It will be different, on the battlefield. Not like… It will be different. They will be trying to kill you, of course you will have to attack them back."

Ronan's shoulder hunches a little, says quietly, "Will you forgive me?"

"For what?"

"Everything I'm going to do."

Adam rests his forehead against Ronan's. "I have no need to forgive you, I love you. I am here for you, I promise."  
  


* * *

When they arrive on the shore, making base by the sea at the end of the city, the leaders get together to decide the best way to go forward. Adam accompanies Ronan, like he always does, and takes in the faces around them. Gansey is there, built like a God and holding himself in the same divine way. Greenmantle, eyes narrowing. All these other princes from different cities, come to fight in the Greeks' honour.

Their next course of action is decided on; they will carry out raids on the farms around the city walls, kill the ones that resist and take the spoils. 

Later, Adam is helping Ronan into his armour, grateful that these raids do not need the entire army. Adam is a soldier by name and by title, but he is not needed in this army the same way Ronan is. Before Adam slips the helmet over Ronan's shaved head, Ronan stops him to press their lips together. Adam opens his mouth, giving Ronan more access to deepen the kiss. If he's honest, Adam really, really doesn't want to let Ronan go, but after a few moments, he pulls back and fixes the helmet on the other man.

Ronan's eyes search Adam's, and he must find what he's looking for, because he nods once before he leaves.

Adam gets into bed, pulling the covers around him. He reminds himself: Ronan will not die, as long as Kavinsky is still alive. He falls asleep, repeating the thought to himself like a mantra. 

It barely feels like he's closed his eyes until he's awoken again, by rustling in the tent.

"I didn't mean to wake you," Ronan says by the door, his helmet already off. He's unclipping himself from his armour, shedding his clothes, and Adam can smell the stench of metallic blood from here.

He does not gag. He promised this to Ronan, so when Ronan slips into the bed beside him, Adam closes his eyes and wraps his arms around him.

* * *

It becomes routine, Ronan going on raids and Adam kissing him goodbye. More often than not, Ronan doesn't seem to want to talk about it. Truthfully, Adam doesn't want to ask him about it, doesn't want to know -- but they have always been honest with each other, ever since they know they could. 

So sometimes Adam asks. Sometimes Ronan will tell him what has happened in the day, refusing to look him in the eye, but Adam will press his forehead to Ronan's anyway.

In the third week, there is a girl on the dais, with the rest of the loot of the day's raid. Everyone knows Ronan is the best fighter, but he has not cared for the gold, for the things they have taken on their raids, in the last few weeks, and neither has Adam.

This is different.

The girl is small, short enough that Adam doesn't think the top of her head could reach his shoulder. Interestingly enough, her hair is short, cut jaggedly as if hacked away with a knife, and she stands with her hands clenched in the rope tying them together. Her face is set in a stony expression, but he can see the fear in her eyes.

Adam clutches at Ronan's arm. "Ronan. You've got to take her."

"What?"

"Before any of the others do. Please."

Ronan follows Adam's gaze, catches the look in the girl's eyes. He steps forward to claim her and immediately goes to return to their tent, with Adam and the girl in tow.

Away from prying eyes, Ronan enters first and then turns to pick up his knife, eyes on the rope wrapped around the girl's wrists. The girl's eyes widen as she jerks away, teeth baring.

Ronan blinks in surprise, as if just remembering he is covered in blood from the day's raid. He ducks his head instead, embarrassed, and hands the knife to Adam.

"I'm going to free you," Adam says, when he lifts the knife and she takes another step back. Her teeth are still bared, distrust written all over her face.

" _ Don't _ ," she hisses.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Adam says, but she shakes her head. She's still backing away from them, and Adam can't stand it anymore --- to be viewed in a way where she is frightened of him, of them. He wants to help. He wants to help, but if he was in her position, he wouldn't trust two men who had just raided her village either.

Abruptly, he lowers the knife and turns to Ronan, who is watching with a pained expression. He is biting anxiously at his wristbands. Adam knows it's killing Ronan as much as it's killing him. He surges forward, pressing his lips to Ronan's, a hand wrapping around the back of his head. It's an action of desperation, but when he pulls back and looks back at the girl, she's watching them with an open mouth.

She takes a step forward. She offers her bound wrists for Adam to cut the rope off.

* * *

The next day, when Ronan is off to do more raids, Adam spends the morning pitching a new tent next to his. It's small, fit for one person, but when he lifts the flap of the door open for the girl to enter, she looks at him gratefully.

"I'm Adam," he says, and tries not to flinch under her scrutiny.

"Blue," she says finally.

"Blue?"

"My name is Blue," she says, an eyebrow lifted. She's challenging him to question her on it, but all he does is dip his head in acknowledgement and leave the tent.

After that, the progress of getting Blue to trust him is a slow thing. She's understandably wary and closed-off, still regards the two men with uncertainty. What Adam learns about her is through observation: she has a bad attitude about almost everything, hates being told what to do, but equally hates being treated as a delicate thing or a small child. Sometimes, she will pull a face at something Adam says that reminds him of Ronan, and has to stop himself from grinning.

As time went on, Blue begins to believe that Adam has no other motive than simply want to be her friend. Her own relationship with Ronan is tricky; as far as Adam can understand, their interactions are based entirely off of jabs at each other and grunts, but then again, Ronan is gone most of the day to raid villages like Blue's.  
  


* * *

Restlessness travels through the camp soon enough. Raids have been happening for a few months, and they've been going well, yes, but the soldiers were promised a war. Finally, King Priam invites Gansey for a meeting to discuss negotiations. 

When Gansey comes back, he shakes his head dejectedly. "He says Helen will not return, that she is there willingly. Tomorrow, we go to war."

Adam is not a stupid man. He knows that the first proper battle of this war requires every soldier, and this is what he has been hoping it would never come to: himself, on the battlefield. The prophecy says Ronan will die in this war, yes, but not before Kavinsky dies. 

The prophecy says nothing about Adam.

"I'll be there beside you the whole time," Ronan promises that night, as they lie in bed. They are in their favourite position for cuddling: Adam, with his back against the tent's wall, with his arms wrapped around Ronan. It's something Ronan denies to this day: his preference of being the little spoon.

It's something that Adam repeats to himself, whilst they're putting on their armour the next morning and marching out with the rest of the soldiers. Already, Adam feels suffocated, surrounded by so many bodies, but Ronan is next to him as they move forward.

Somewhere, a trumpet blows, and Ronan just has enough time to turn and say to Adam, "Stay behind me!" before they all run forward to meet the oncoming enemy. 

Almost immediately, Adam has to duck out of the way of a spear thrown his way, raising his shield as the clatter of a sword comes to meet him. It's automatic, the way the training that Chiron has spent years training him kicks in and takes over. Without thinking, his own sword jerks forward to impale the man attacking him, and he falls. 

Adam thinks about the boy he killed when he was eight, and is only shaken out of it when he sees a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye.

He raises his sword instinctively, but it's only Ronan, in all his six foot four armoured glory, blood splattered on his armour and his eyes fixed on Adam. He grins when Adam looks at him, a feral thing, and then he's fighting a few Romans who are coming towards him.

For a moment, Adam indulges himself and watches. 

Few people seem to get close enough to attack him, anyone he has to parry away with his own sword still a good distance away. After a while, he realises it's Ronan's doing -- the entire battle, Ronan is never more than a few feet away from him, taking down anyone who moves closer to Adam. 

See, Adam is a good soldier, one of the better ones in the army. His movements are precise and powerful, each thrust meeting its target and maiming appropriately. He does not care that he is good; he does not like fighting like this. He was trained by Chiron, teacher of gods, and there wasn't much on this planet that Adam Parrish wasn't good at, once he committed to it. 

Adam is a good soldier, one of the better ones in the army, but he is nothing compared to Ronan on a battlefield.

Ronan fights like he has everything to lose, like he has nothing to lose. He fights like he was born to do nothing else (Adam doesn't believe that; Adam has been loved by Ronan Lynch and he can tell you that Ronan was born for much softer things). 

Ronan Lynch, half-God half-human, fighter of men.

Adam is so in love with him, it hurts sometimes. 

* * *

After the first time, Adam is not required to go fight as often as he had anticipated. Ronan goes out to fight every day; even if he was not the best fighter they had, he was a prince and he had to honour his position. But Adam was not a prince, or a hero, or even a soldier who was required to be here by law. He was an exile, he was Ronan's companion, and he was able to choose to join Ronan on the battlefield as often as he would like to.

Which is to say, almost never.

Ronan never asked him to come, because he knew Adam, he  _ knows  _ Adam. He will not ask Adam to fight on a battlefield for him, be somewhere he does not want to be. 

"Do you see Kavinsky out there?" Adam asks Ronan once, curiosity getting the better of him.

Ronan pauses in the middle of putting on his shirt. "Sometimes."

"What's he like? Fighting, I mean."

He shrugs, a surly movement that reminds Adam of being fifteen and moody. "Like he couldn't give a shit. Like he wants to die."

"You don't try to fight him, do you?" It's a stupid question, but Adam needs Ronan to say it.

Ronan snorts and moves closer to Adam, bringing his hands to cup his face. His grin is a brilliant thing, blindingly white. "What has Kavinsky ever done to me?"

* * *

With Ronan gone throughout the day, Adam splits his time up between Blue and the medical tent. 

The head doctor of the medical tent began noticing Adam's particular talent with herb-mixing, using plants to subdue pain and heal the wounded soldiers that continually came through the tent. Everything Chiron has taught him for years came back to him like second-nature, information retained in the systematic Adam tended to do things. 

He forgot how much he liked this. Or, not so much as forgot, but his satisfaction in healing had been pushed aside for the other urgencies in his life --- for the war's need to have more soldiers, more bodies, at their disposal. The head doctor had been taken aback in Adam's natural skill in healing, in the boy's patience and furrowed brow as he delodged arrows from the muscles of soldiers. 

Adam was invited back to help out more often.  
  


* * *

To Adam's surprise, the time went as quickly as it had done when it was only him and Ronan and Chiron. Months turned to years before his eyes, and Adam could scarcely believe four years had passed.

The truth is, Adam had done something he never thought he'd be able to do: he'd grown comfortable here, in a camp of hundreds of soldiers, in the middle of a war. Here, with Ronan lying next to him at night, with Blue to accompany him during the day, with saving people's lives as the days went on. He'd even grown closer to Noah, the boy who drove Ronan's chariot in and out of battles. He was a young boy, blonde hair and light eyes, with a perpetual grin. The youthfulness made Adam smile.

Aurora still made visits to Ronan, though she had made sure that she requested meetings far from the others in the camp or simply showed up in their tent when they were alone. Over such a long time, Adam had thought he was used to it, but he startled when a voice called Ronan's name from the corner of the tent.

"Mother," Ronan says in surprise, and Adam moves his head that had been resting on Ronan's shoulder, expecting him to get up. Ronan doesn't, but takes Adam's hand instead. "Is everything okay?"

Aurora nods and says, "Remember to sacrifice and pray to Apollo today. He is angry."

"I will." Aurora hesitates, and Ronan adds, "Is there something else?"

"Another prophecy," she says. The two boys stiffen. "The best of the Greeks will die before the next two years have passed."

Ronan's hand tightens around Adam's. "We have known it was coming."

Aurora shakes her head. "No. It says you will still be alive when it happens."

"What do you think it means?"

"I don't know." Something flickers across her face, troubled, and she moves forward to press a kiss to Ronan's head. "I have to go. I will come back in a few days. I love you."

And then she's gone as quickly as she came. 

"Who do you think is the best of the Greeks?" Adam says, breaking the unsettling silence that follows the disappearance of the goddess.

"I don't know. My father, maybe?" Adam does not have anything kind to say about that, so he doesn't say anything. "Or Gansey. He is a good man."

"He is," Adam agrees. He rests his head against Ronan's shoulder again. "At least it is not you."

* * *

The day Blue kisses Adam is a sunny day. 

In retrospect, Adam realises that maybe he should've noticed sooner -- he is a perceptive man, these things don't tend to escape him. But he supposes he has been so inexplicably wrapped up with Ronan for so long that it had never crossed his mind.

They are sitting side-by-side in the grass, picking through a patch of plants that Adam needs to use back at the medical tent. Blue often helped him with small errands like this, and it had felt normal. In times like this, Adam wished that he had met Blue years ago. He could imagine her, a girl of five years old, just as spiky and lovely as she was now. She would've made living at his father's palace bearable, he thinks. 

He's still thinking about it when their conversation lapse into silence. She moves quickly, brave as she always is, and her lips press against his in a single movement. 

When she pulls away, she opens her eyes and sees the way Adam is looking at her. He places his hand on top of hers without saying anything, but she already knows.

"I'm sorry," she says, leaning backwards and biting her lip. 

Adam shakes his head. "You do not have to be sorry."

"I thought ---" Blue cuts herself off, shredding some grass between her fingers. "I know that you love him. And that's --- that's fine. I just thought. Some people have wives and lovers, both."

"If I ever wish to take a wife, you know I would choose you, Blue."

"But you do not wish to take a wife."

Adam shakes his head again. He does not seem to quite know what to say in this situation.

"Don't you want children?"

The words catch him off-guard. He thinks about his father's fists, thinks about wanting to be anywhere other than at home. "I don't think I'd be much of a parent."

"I don't believe that."

"I don't know," Adam says. "Do you?"

Blue closes her eyes. "Maybe."

Too late, Adam realises what she had meant by her question, and opens his mouth to say something. To say what, he doesn't know. But he does not want unrequited love to hurt her as much as it seems to already have done, wants to fix it even though he doesn't know how. 

In another life, he thinks he could've loved Blue the way she loved him. But he had met Ronan first. But he had Ronan.

Blue's eyes open before he can say anything, and she shakes her head. She gives him a small smile, and he knows they will be okay. "It is all right. Come, we should go back."

He doesn't know what else to do than follow her back to camp.

After that, Blue does not change much in the way she interacts with him. Neither does he. They do not talk about wives or children again, and when Blue holds his hand sometimes, Adam lets her.

* * *

Ronan's eyes are closed, but Adam knows him well enough to know that he is not sleeping. His sleeping habits are unpredictable at best, and Adam is lying close enough to feel him breathing.

"Ronan," he says, and then stops. He tries again. "Ronan. Do you ever think about having children?"

Ronan's eyes do not open. "Sometimes."

The answer doesn't surprise Adam as much as he thought it would. He could very well picture Ronan with children. 

The silence that follows is ringing, making Adam feel itchy. Finally, he says, "Do you like Blue?"

For a moment, Adam thinks Ronan has somehow fallen asleep, but then Ronan's eyes open. His gaze settles on Adam's face. "What does this have to do with children?"

Adam shrugs.

"Does she want children?"

"Maybe," he says, because he does not lie --- not to Ronan, anyway. 

"With me?"

The thought makes Adam laugh, a beautiful, overwhelming thing that crawls out of his chest. He could imagine Blue's face at the idea. Next to him, he feels the bed move as Ronan joins in, a smirk playing on his lips, amused at his own joke.

When the laughter dies down, Ronan looks at him. "With you, then. She wants children with you."

Adam does not answer. He does not need to.

"Is she pregnant?" The words sound pained, and Adam jerks his head sharply. Something in Adam's eyes make Ronan exhale. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Do you want children with her?"

"No. I love you." It is the truth. But Adam cannot help thinking about children with Ronan.

* * *

The end comes all at once, like a tsunami that no one ever saw coming, even though everyone was prepared for it. 

It was a funny thing, fate and coincidence and all the things in between. Because Ronan had gone to almost every battle since the beginning of the war, because he had fought non-stop for the last few years. Because Adam had only gone into the battlefield a handful of times and only when he was needed, because he was more comfortable in the camp working on wounded soldiers. Because the two were hardly ever inseparable; separated, yes, but inseparable. Because Adam could handle himself just fine, and what had he said about fate all those years ago, when Ronan was being called to a war he was going to die in? Fuck the fate. Fuck it all.

Gansey had asked Adam to accompany him that day. Paris had challenged him personally, a fair fight for Helen. He had specifically requested for Ronan to stay back, as he would be keeping Kavinsky behind the city walls too.  _ A fair fight.  _ Kavinsky was the best fighter, except for Ronan. This was the terms of this fight.

There was something tricky and complicated, hidden under a layer of innocent simplicity. Adam was a clever man. He knew a ploy when he saw one.

But Gansey had asked him. Gansey had asked him specifically. He had known Ronan would protest, had known Adam preferred to stay in the camp, had known what he was asking and had asked anyway. 

"You're one of the better fighters we have," Gansey says, when Adam stares at him in confusion for a few moments. 

Adam is not easily won over my pretty words and compliments. But Gansey is looking at him a little desperately, like he really does want and need him there beside him. His voice is earnest and Adam wonders how anyone could ever say no to Gansey, when he is so honest and aloof and  _ good. _

He knows Ronan will say  _ no,  _ but Adam is nothing if not his own man. He is nothing if he doesn't make decisions for himself, and he says yes. 

When he goes back to his tent to prepare (to tell  _ Ronan _ ), he is surprised to open the flap door and see Ronan and Blue in there already, laughing. The sight throws him off for a moment --- but then, he knows them both well enough to know they are made of the same stuff, that in another lifetime they would've been much better friends.

Ronan is still grinning when he turns to look at Adam at the entrance of their tent. The grin doesn't slip off as much as freeze on his face. "What's happened?"

"Nothing," Adam says, and he squares his shoulders slightly. With an air of nonchalance, he moves towards his armour in the corner of the room. "Gansey has a fight with Paris. I'm going to accompany him."

"What? Why wasn't I informed?"

"Because you're not coming," he says, clipped. "That was the deal. It is a fight between Gansey and Paris, only."

"Then why are you going?"

"Precautions. Gansey asked."

Adam can't look up right now, focused on pulling out pieces of armour and dropping them on the bed. When he hears his name being called, he closes his eyes for a brief second before turning to Ronan, who has moved to stand next to him. He hadn't even heard him.

"You can't go alone."

He makes a noise. "I'm not going to be alone, I'll be going with the rest of the army."

"I mean without me," Ronan corrects, and when Adam finally looks up at him, his blue eyes are darkened and wide with worry. He brings a hand to his cheekbone.

There's a small sound, like a cough, from the other side of the tent, and the two boys turn their heads towards it. They had forgotten Blue was still there, and Ronan drops his hand.

"I'll see you later then," Blue says, darting forwards. She strains on her tiptoes for a moment to press a kiss to Adam's cheek. "Stay safe, Adam."

The entrance flaps behind her. Ronan leans his forehead against Adam's, and it takes every ounce of Adam's will to not collapse right there and then, tell Gansey he cannot go and fall into bed instead.

"It's too dangerous," Ronan whispers.

"I will be fine," Adam promises. He presses their lips together, a long, drawn-out kiss. Then, he takes a swift step back to pick up the forgotten armour. "Will you help me get dressed?"

Ronan gives a painful nod. 

Watching Ronan help buckle him into his armour, tying the straps, Adam can see for a wild moment why Ronan is so obsessed with his hands. There's something holy about the way Ronan's hands move so swiftly, practised in preparing for a battle. The leather bands on Ronan's wrist that he had been wearing since he was a child brushes against Adam's skin, and Adam wants to grab hold of them and hold on. 

Adam's heart hammers in his chest, an off-steady beat.

When Ronan picks up the last item to put on Adam, his helmet, he pauses. How many have they done this, role reversed? Adam raises his arms to wrap around his neck as he pulls him down for a kiss, feeling the heavy metal of his armour move stiffly with him.

"You have to be careful," Ronan says against his lips. He sounds desperate, one pull of the thread away from unravelling. "Promise me."

"I will be fine," Adam repeats. Ronan places the helmet on his head. "I love you."

"I love you."

Ronan walks Adam to the rest of the army, to where Gansey is waiting. He helps Adam mount into his chariot, and he's struck again by the odd role reveral. Adam has never been up here on his chariot, with Ronan unarmed and standing on the ground.

"Bring him back to me," Ronan says to Noah, who is adjusting the reins of the chariot to be ready to leave. Noah gives him a bright smile and mock-salute. He turns to Gansey, next. "Bring him back to me."

Adam rolls his eyes, squeezes Ronan's hand one more time, and then they are leaving. He wants to turn back one last time, to spot Ronan left behind at the camp, but he forces himself to look straight on. There will be time to see him later.

* * *

Adam had been right, but there's no satisfaction in it now.

The moment Paris had attacked Gansey from behind, all hell broke loose.

Gone was any civility in war laws, where both armies had watched the fight between two men with bated breath. The Greeks had roared with anger at the trickery, and all Adam could hear and see was the clanging of metal on metal, a loud chorus of shouts. He had barely taken a breath of his own before he found engaged in combat with a Roman, sword twisting with speed.

He knocks the person aside. When he turns to find Gansey, or anyone else he could recognise, he finds nothing. All he could see was a blur of bodies, blood and blood and so much  _ blood _ .

His instincts take over as another man comes barrelling towards him, and Adam jerks out of the way, raises his sword again. 

He doesn't know how long he fights for. Exhaustion seeps into his bones a while in, but Adam has been functioning with exhaustion for the last twenty years of his life already. He lifts his sword again and again, and men fall around him, but he cannot let that be him. He cannot. He has Ronan to go back to.

But then a stray arrow catches him in the chest, throwing him off-balance for a second. His body armour covering his chest had been ripped off a while ago. He swipes his sword at the man he's fighting to cut him down, and then looks down, see the arrow protruding from his left upper chest. He snaps the shaft off and tries to gauge the pain, if it's worth pulling the arrow out of his chest right now.

He prods it a little, and his vision blacks for a second, growing dizzy. He decides to leave it in.

He's just getting his sense of bearing again when someone's shield slams into him from behind, sending him sprawling forward. His sword clatters away out of his reach, and the arrow in his chest digs into him further as he catches himself on the floor. Gasping, he can feel the arrow burrowing itself further into his skin.

With difficulty, he flips himself onto his back, eyes already searching for a nearby weapon. A foot kicks the nearest sword away and Adam looks up at his attacker, unable to swallow his fear.

Kavinsky.

Ronan's right; Kavinsky fights like he wants to die, like he's got nothing to lose. Even as he advances towards Adam, he cuts down people around him like they're flies, teeth bared. He looks at home here, but not the way Ronan does --- Adam can see that Kavinsky enjoys the fight because he enjoys killing people, and that. That doesn't bode well with Adam.

Adam's hands fly out, trying to find something ---  _ anything  _ to help him. There's a sense of hopelessness that's threatening to drown him, but damn it if Adam is going to die without a fight. 

But Kavinsky is not supposed to be here, the same reason Ronan was kept in the camp and let Adam into this battle alone. Adam blames the blood he is losing  _ fast  _ as to why it takes so long for him to compute it. Paris had said Ronan and Kavinsky were not allowed in today's battle, for a fair fight. Paris had called it a fair fight, and then double-crossed Gansey anyway.

From here, Adam can clearly see all the blood splattered over the other man. It is clear Kavinsky had no plans to stay behind the city walls today at all.

_ You can't kill me, _ Adam wants to tell him, but from the cruel twist of his lips, he does not think Kavinsky would care to hear such a thing. But Kavinsky does not understand. If he kills Adam, Ronan will not let him live. If he kills Adam, Ronan will not sleep until Kavinsky is dead --- and Kavinsky can't die. Kavinsky can't die, he has to live, he must live. Kavinsky has to live through this war and grow old, withered and centuries-old, no matter how terrible he is, because he is the last thing tying Ronan to this earth. Because once Kavinsky dies, Ronan will too, and Adam cannot allow that.

He thinks about Ronan's blinding smile as he says,  _ What has Kavinsky ever done to me? _

He spits out a mouthful of blood onto the ground beside him, feels the blood from his arrow wound trickling down into his stomach. Desperately, he puts all his remaining strength into a kick, aimed at Kavinsky's stomach as he approaches closer and closer still, which makes him stumble back for a moment.

And then, Kavinsky is above him, his spear poised. The sunlight glints off the metal, and Adam thinks,  _ No _ .

The spear falls, and Adam doesn't even know if he screams in agony, the pain in his stomach too unbearable. The last thing Adam sees before his eyes shut with heaviness is Kavinsky standing above him, hand still on the spear as he yanks it out, face smug. 

The last thing Adam thinks before he slips out of the world is:  _ Ronan _ .

* * *

Ronan is already at the gate of the camp when the army comes back. 

He has been waiting there for hours, waiting until he could see Adam again.

Greenmantle comes through first, at the head of the army. When he looks at Ronan, for once he does not say anything scathing. Instead, he marches on.

When Noah comes through crying, Ronan knows something is wrong.

It is Gansey who has him in his arms. He is wearing an expression Ronan has never seen before, hollow and guilty and pained, but Ronan does not care. There is a body in his arms and he does not need to see the glimpse of Adam's hair to know it is him.

With a scream, he lurches forward, grabbing the body out of Gansey's arms. Collapses to the floor, pressing his forehead against a corpse, saying again like a prayer,  _ Adam, Adam, Adam. _ As if Adam might respond anyway, but Ronan has never seen Adam look so still, and he can't --- He can't handle this.

The others give him a wide berth. All of them, except Blue, who had heard Ronan's scream across camp and  _ knew _ . 

She falls to her knees next to Ronan, who is cradling Adam's head. Sobs fall out of her like a waterfall, as she clutches at Adam's still, cold hands.

"Who did this?" The words tear out of Ronan's throat, raw and broken.

Someone, Ronan cannot see who and does not care, says, "Kavinsky."

Ronan grabs at a discarded spear on the floor, but then there's a hand covering his, shaky and soft and feminine. Blue is shaking her head. She still has Adam's hands held tightly in her other hand, like she's afraid to let go. 

"Tomorrow," she whispers to Ronan, a wet sound. "You can kill him tomorrow. Do not go today."

* * *

Ronan does not say anything but Adam's name for the next few hours, after he's taken Adam body back to his tent and lay him on their bed. Blue follows him and he does not stop her.

Even when his mother visits that night, Ronan does not move from his spot beside Adam. Blue had cried herself to sleep at the end of the bed, legs tucked up to her chest, eyes and heart heavy.

"I did not know," Aurora says, eyes sad and voice in horror. "Ronan, I am so sorry."

Ronan knows it is not her fault, but he does not know what to say.

"But if you kill Kavinsky, you will die too," she says, and he supposes a rational part of him cannot blame her for not wanting to watch her son die. 

"It does not matter," he croaks, voice a shredded thing. "I don't care about the prophecy. I don't care."

"Ronan," is all Aurora says, distressed.

"He was the best of us all," another voice says, small but strong. Mother and son turn to see Blue, awake, pushing her hair out of tear-soaked face. "He was --- he was the best of us all."

"Best of the Greeks," Ronan says, echoing the phrase from what feels like a prophecy made too long ago. How could he not have seen it? How could he not have known? Had he been so caught up in his own destiny and death that he didn't even think for a second Adam could touch these history books as well?

No, that wasn't it. He just hadn't thought the world could be so cruel as to take him away from him. Ronan Lynch had always taken the worst of the punches, and expected the world to be kind back anyway.

* * *

The things following Adam's death all are blurred. Ronan goes through the motions, and does not think about them at all. All he wants is Kavinsky dead. Adam, at least, deserves that. 

Delicately, he cleans Adam's body up, wipes the grime and dirt and blood away until he looks like Adam again. He lets Blue stay with him as he leaves the camp to avenge the death.

The day after Adam dies, Ronan fights a God. He wins.

Up in Olympus, the gods stare down, at a man ruined with grief and thinks,  _ What will happen if he attacks the city? He has defeated one of our own. What is to stop him from doing more? _

They do not understand that they do not need to fear for Troy. Ronan does not want the city. He wants Kavinsky, blood spilt on the floor the way Adam's had been. When Kavinsky is dead, he will stop.

"Have you finally come to kill me?" Kavinsky says, recklessly stupid, even with blood on his teeth.

"You took something of mine," Ronan screams, feral.. It does not even sound human. "You killed him."

"It has taken years for you to fight me, and it is all because I have killed your friend?" Scorn laces with Kavinsky's voice. There is no doubt that Kavinsky has never felt a human connection strong enough to justify a reaction like this.

" _ Philtatos _ ," Ronan corrects, sharply.  _ Most beloved.  _

Kavinsky grins. Ronan hates it, hates _him_. "Say a prayer for me before I die, yeah?"

Ronan raises his sword. All he can see is Adam lying on his bed, no longer breathing. "There are no bargains between lions and men. I will kill you and eat you raw."

* * *

When Ronan carries Adam's body to the pyre to cremate him, he pauses before he lights the flint.

Blue's small hand closes around his, and he breathes heavily for a second. And then he lights it.

"I loved him too," Blue says.

The words would have ripped a jealous hole into Ronan's chest once. But his heart has already been taken out, and he thinks Adam had deserved to be loved by so many people. He  _ deserves  _ to be loved so fully. Best of us all. Best of the Greeks.

"I know." The flames flicker in the reflection of Ronan's blue eyes, but he does not take his gaze off of the pyre. He won't until Adam has been reduced to ashes. "When I die, I want my ashes to be mingled with his and for us to be buried together."

He says  _ when,  _ and Blue does not question him, does not say he was supposed to be a God. She just nods.

The army behind them disperses when the fire dies down, but Ronan and Blue do not move.

"Tell me about him," she says.

Ronan's throat closes. "You knew him."

She shakes her head, stooping to sit on the floor. "Tell me about him, the way you know him. Tell me about him before, before this war, when he was a boy. Tell me all the memories, you have them there somewhere. You must do."

Ronan sits down next to her, long limbs dwarfing hers. He swallows the lump in his throat. Thinks about Adam's smile, the softness of his hair, his cheekbones and his neck and his hands. His hands. Thinks about Adam at nine years old, hiding in a closet, demanding Ronan to take him to his lessons for the day. Thinks about their first kiss, young and terrified. Thinks about his furrowed brow as he healed dying soldiers. Thinks about deaf ears and weather predictions and  _ I love you.  _ Thinks about the tenderness in Adam's touch before he left Ronan for the last time.

"I am made of memories."


End file.
